


AD 1997

by Basingstoke



Series: Waters of Life and Death [12]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-25
Updated: 2003-10-25
Packaged: 2017-10-02 16:01:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Basingstoke/pseuds/Basingstoke





	AD 1997

He could feel the buzz, so he knew the old guy was in there. In fact--he bet he didn't even have to knock. He stood back as the knob turned.

The door swung open halfway. Light and the sound of French TV spilled through.

"Whatever you're selling, I don't want any," Methos finally said.

"Yeah, but what if it's free?" Richie said.

Methos whipped around the corner sword-first. "Richie! You nearly gave me a fucking heart attack! Knock, why don't you!"

Richie shrugged and grinned. Methos didn't return it. "Why are you here?" he asked. "Does MacLeod want something?"

"No, actually, MacLeod doesn't know I'm here. I'm trying to get away from him. He's making me repaint the deck on the barge." And detail his car. And beat his carpets. And probably scrape the barnacles off the hull in scuba gear tomorrow. One little mistake--one little tiny understandable fuck-up like almost getting MacLeod's car repossessed--and the guy made you pay and pay and pay. He even had that sweet deal set up with Marina Lemartin and her big, gorgeous... castle... but Mac kept going on and _on_ about debts of honor and his blessed car until Richie agreed to come back to Paris with him.

Yeesh. But there was always time for Marina later, right? He was Immortal. Nothing but.

Methos still hadn't put his sword away. "But why are you _here_?" he asked, sounding downright unfriendly.

Richie held up a videotape. "I think we got off on the wrong foot. If Mac's taught me anything, it's that having plenty of friends is never a bad idea." He bent down and opened his backpack, showing Methos the box of popcorn and bottles of beer.

"MacLeod taught you that, did he?" Methos rolled the sword between his palms, drilling a little half-circle into the wooden floor. He seemed different than he had back in Seacouver--kind of moody. Still a prick, but in a hey-I-could-kill-you way rather than a hee-hee superior wise guy sort of way. Richie couldn't really say it was an improvement.

"I suppose you got my address from Joe."

"Yeah." From Joe's address book, anyway, swiped from his coat pocket for a harmless little look-see. He'd almost expected to find Methos under M, but he was safely under P for Pierson, with a string of Paris addresses crossed out. This current address was actually under O, with a line and arrow. MacLeod wasn't listed.

Methos picked his sword up and rested it on his shoulder. "So what did you rent?"

Richie grinned. "Star Wars."

* * *

Methos' sword was leaning against the back of the couch; so was Richie's, since he'd finally gotten the hang of hiding it in his coat. Mac had sworn up and down that he would, but damn, that wasn't easy. The beer was down to two half-finished soldiers and they were sharing their second bowl of popcorn.

And Obi-Wan Kenobi was hunting down Darth Vader.

The TV--one of those little VCR combinations--was sitting in a huge throne-chair-thing that Methos had dragged in front of the hideous leopard-print couch. The chair looked old--_really_ old. The coffee table was medieval, probably German, probably cut down from a taller work-table; there were falcons carved along the side. The legs ended in newer--probably mid-19th century--ball and claw feet. Richie didn't have anywhere near the eye for antiques that Mac did, but he knew valuables when he saw them.

Methos had his feet up on it. In hiking boots. The top was stained and scratched to hell.

"Hm!" Methos said. He leaned forward, setting down his beer and picking up the remote just as Obi-Wan and Vader crossed sabers. He paused the movie mid-slash and got up from the couch.

"What?" Richie asked. He grabbed another handful of popcorn.

Methos opened the lower doors of one of the armoires. "I've always wondered what fighting with a lightsaber would be like," he said, glancing from the cabinet to Richie. "A massless blade you can't nick or break or bend."

"That would be _sweet_," Richie agreed. He hopped over the back of the couch and joined Methos at the armoire--which contained more swords, knives, and guns than Richie had ever seen outside a museum. Boxes of ammo were stacked at one end; a katana and a couple of those little three-pronged guys Richie could never remember the name of hung in the back, next to a compound bow and something that looked like a ladle with a really long handle. Swords in their sheaths were piled up like candy bars, with an evil-looking, naked, barbed sword and a big freaking axe right on top. All Richie could come up with was "Whoa."

"As the Boy Scout said to the bicycle: Beep repaired." Methos leaned in, reaching over the swords and knives and bullets, and pulled out a pair of long cardboard gift-wrap tubes.

Richie looked at the tubes. "You know, I knew a girl who lost an arm from one of those things. You don't mess around with paper cuts."

"No mass," Methos said, and tossed one to Richie.

"Oh. Right." Richie stood up, bounced the tube from hand to hand a few times, then settled into his best, showiest two-handed stance. "Your powers are weak, old man!"

Methos held his tube before him, pointed at the carpet. "I'm really not the laying-about-the-desert, wisdom-dispensing type," he said. "More the fancy-starship-driving, princess-impregnating type."

"Sure--in your _dreams_." Richie attacked him with huge, swinging strokes, Vader-style. It was way easier to do flashy moves when there was no weight to tire you down.

Methos parried him in much the same way, coming to rest in some ridiculous lunge position with the tube over his head. He waggled his eyebrows and grinned. Richie darted in and pegged him on the leg before Methos could bring his tube around to block him. "That's your leg!" he shouted triumphantly, bouncing on his toes. "That's a big freaking hole in your shinbone!"

Methos frowned. "It's only a flesh wound," he said, and attacked Richie. He started with showy play moves, but his face shadowed over as he drove Richie across the room. His blows grew more powerful--as powerful as cardboard could be--and finally he knocked Richie's tube out of his hand and stabbed him in the stomach.

"Oof!" That _hurt_. Only for a minute, but _damn_.

"Bugger," Methos muttered. He turned away, tossing the tube into the corner.

Richie rubbed his stomach as the bruise faded away. "Something on your mind? You seem a little on edge."

Methos frowned, rubbing his neck absently. "I suppose I am a little on edge. MacLeod wouldn't like it if he knew you were here."

"What are you talking about? You're, like, his new best friend." He was still kind of pissed that Mac hadn't _told_ him that he found the world's oldest Immortal until a year and a half later. Maybe he wasn't 400 years old, but he wasn't a _kid_, and he knew how to keep a secret.

"We've had a bit of a falling-out," Methos said. He grabbed his beer from the coffee table and sat back down on the ugly couch.

Falling-out? "Well--it'll be okay. Mac doesn't stay angry for long." Long enough to make Richie shine all his shoes, but that wasn't so long in the scheme of things.

"Yes. He does." Methos finished the rest of the beer in one swallow and popped up again to get a bottle of vodka from another cabinet.

Richie spread his hands and followed Methos back to the couch. "Not when it's friends. It can't be that big a deal."

"Sure it can." Methos opened the vodka. "Want some?"

"No. Thanks. How big a deal are we talking about?"

"We're not talking about it," Methos said. He leaned forward and turned the movie back on.

Okay then. He was sitting two feet from a guy with a sword and a temper who'd just switched from beer to liquor. Richie decided not to press the point. He sat back and watched Vader take down Obi-Wan, and then Luke take down the Death Star.

"Things don't always turn out all right," Methos said as Leia handed out medals. "You wanted wisdom--there it is."

"I knew that one already." Learned it when he was five.

"Well then, you've got a head start." Methos swung his feet up--and missed the top of the coffee table, instead kicking the carved side with a sickening crack.

Richie winced. "That didn't sound so good."

"No. Damn. I'll have to get another one; this one's falling apart. First the legs, now this--it only lasted six bloody centuries." He kicked it away from him viciously, knocking two empty beer bottles onto the floor.

"Well, you can fix it. I'm sure Mac has glue and stuff, he loves messing with antiques."

"Antiques?" Methos scoffed. "It's a _table_, Richie, not an antique. I bought it while I was in college and it's been kicking around ever since. Not everything is valuable just because it's old." He stood, vodka clutched in one hand, and kicked it again, splintering a leg out and spilling the rest of the bottles and the bowl onto the floor.

Richie watched the dregs soak into the carpet and his fingers itched automatically for a towel. How old was that carpet? That chair? Or for that matter, this couch? "But it--"

Methos cut him off. "There's no special qualities something takes on just because it's been a piece of trash for five centuries rather than five years."

"Of course there is!" Richie argued. "Even _trash_, which that table wasn't, shows you a way of life that doesn't exist any more." He stood up; being loomed over gave him the creeps.

"And what on earth makes you think that's desirable?"

Richie was starting to think he'd stepped in something that was rapidly getting up over his head. "So that--we know. What it was like. And maybe--" He snuck a look at Methos' face. "So we know why we don't do it any more."

Methos took a long swig of vodka. Richie inched a little closer to his sword, just in case.

"You're right," Methos said.

"When I'm right, I'm right," Richie agreed, feeling relieved. He'd been in enough bad situations to know when he'd just avoided one.

"Do you know you sound exactly like MacLeod sometimes?"

Or, you know, not. "That a good thing or a bad thing?"

Methos bent over the TV--fully turning his back on Richie for the first time all evening--and hit the rewind button. "Good thing."

"See, you're still friends. Just like you and I are friends now, due to the insoluble bond of popcorn and booze. I'd forgive you, buddy!" He opened his arms. Methos shot him an incredulous look.

"You haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about," Methos said.

"Well, no. But I'm pretty sure that's your head," Richie said, pointing, "and it's still attached to your neck, and if Mac hasn't changed that fact, then you haven't done anything he won't forgive."

Methos swigged from the bottle again. "Let it be, kid." The tape stopped and ejected automatically; Methos took it from the machine and handed it to Richie.

Richie stuck the tape in his backpack and slung the pack over his shoulder. He picked up his coat and sword. "Seriously, man. Take the table over. Ask him for some glue."

Methos shook his head, but smiled. "Call me if you get arrested again. I'm a pretty good lawyer."

"Hey, sure thing. At least you haven't got a deck to paint." He raised his hand in goodbye and headed out the door.

So. Five thousand year old man befriended, check. Head preserved through heated discussion, check. He was doing pretty well tonight. He hopped onto his bike; time to go home and see if Mac was done pouting yet.

Three blocks later, the police lights were flashing, and Richie was going through the French field sobriety test and desperately trying to remember Methos' phone number.

THE END.

 

All comments are welcome.


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